1873. Current status of Mandalore (Part 1)
Time goes back to 16BBY, Mandalore.
Now under the rule of Mandalorian Duchess Bo-Katan-Kryze, Mandalore is showing a false prosperity. The planet appears to be in order on the surface, but in fact, all contradictions are forcibly suppressed.
Death Watch possesses absolute force. They are originally known for their fanatical militarism and extremism. Although there were not many in number at first, everyone is an extremely ferocious warrior. They have been tempered for thousands of years, they are murderous, and they are ruthless. In front of these terrible executioners, those the Mandalorian who lived in peaceful times are no match at all.
If Satine-Kryze made any mistakes, then maybe she put everything about Mandalore on her shoulders. You can say that she avoided the fate of Mandalore being destroyed and saved the people on Mandalore, but you can also say that she did not fully mobilize the power of the people.
When Pre-Vizsla led Death Watch and Mandalore Prime Minister Almec to fight for power, it often happened that a three-person team of Death Watch would chase thousands of people from the temporarily organized defense force of Almec!
Death Watch killed everyone in that conflict, and their methods were cruel. After the defense forces were defeated, they would often use the mobility of their jetpacks to massacre on the heads of the fleeing soldiers! Fire rockets, use a flamethrower to spray deadly flames from the sky, or even use a grappling hook to pick up broken soldiers, climb hundreds of meters into the air and drop them directly!
Some psychopathic Death Watch warriors would even fly in the sky, following these defeated soldiers who fell from high altitudes, admiring their frightened expressions and hysterical screams.
Now, Prime Minister Almec was defeated and was accused of being a coup d'etat and imprisoned in the underground prison of the capital Sundari. Pre-Vizsla, who ruled the entire Mandalore, also built a powerful army.
Pre-Vizsla is not stupid. He knows that the move to expand the army and prepare for war will be hated by the Galactic Empire, but he must go all the way. The first reason is that this is the plan of that terrible master - Darth-Tenebrus. After seeing the terrifying power of the other party, Pre Vizsla did not dare to be disobedient in the slightest.
The second reason is to expand the military and prepare for war and establish a military government. This is the ideological program of Death Watch. Once Pre-Vizsla wants to break this program, then he will lose the loyalty of those Death Watch to him.
Three years after defeating Almec, Pre-Vizsla established an army of one million people and conducted rigorous training on this army.
At the same time, in order to meet the demand for manufacturing equipment for this army, Pre-Vizsla expanded the Beskar steel smelting plant to mass-produce Beskar steel. At the same time, some private factories were forcibly nationalized and transformed into production lines for the production of blasters and combat armor.
Of course, the Beskar steel with limited production cannot be equipped to this unknown army that can only be regarded as cannon fodder compared to the Death Watch warriors. The initial equipment of this motley army was Mandalorian helmet made of ordinary steel, plus combat uniforms with bulletproof steel sheets inserted.
Compared to the Mandalorian Crusaders that once dominated the galaxy, this army is not even a beggar's version. But the current Mandalore is invincible!
Moreover, this army also solved the urgent need of Death Watch warriors's small number of people. When suppressing uprisings that broke out in some places, there was no need to bother the powerful Death Watch warriors to take action, and they could just pull them over and crush them.
However, in this environment, just having an army is not enough, but there is also a lack of battleships on Mandalore, or to put it bluntly, there are almost none.
In order to build a basic fleet, Pre-Vizsla continues to target private enterprises on Mandalore. This time he is eyeing the largest company on Mandalore - Mandalore Engine Company (Mandal Motors).
The Mandal Engine Company is a company that mainly manufactures civilian spacecraft and has always been the main industrial enterprise on the planet Mandalore. In addition to some unarmed ships, the company's main product currently is the Buirk'alor-class airspeeder, which was also an unarmed patrol boat widely equipped by Satine Kryze's new Mandalorian regime.
Now this airspeed craft has been ordered to be modified by Pre-Vizsla. Three blaster machine guns and a missile launcher are installed on it, giving it good firepower.
But this was not enough. Although Pre-Vizsla did not dare to directly annex Mandalore Engine Company like other small and medium-sized private enterprises, he still directly issued a mandatory order to this enterprise, ordering them to immediately adjust their production lines and start building interstellar fighters for him.
Forced by the power of Pre-Vizsla, Mandalore Engine Company had to agree, and at the same time organized its own R&D and design team to start preparing to build a fighter jet. And after accumulating a certain amount of experience, he began to build battleships.
In fact, judging from the size of the company, Mandalore Engine Company is fully capable of building warships, but their main business was not in this direction before. Of course, transformation is actually not that troublesome. After all, this company originally manufactured airspeed craft and civilian spaceships. If it slightly changes the engine and structure, installs weapons and fire control, it will become a fighter jet.
However, Mandalore had peace for too long after all. And even before Satine-Kryze implemented the demilitarization policy, Mandalore's military industry had been destroyed for at least a thousand years. It is not easy to restart military production now.
Therefore, Pre-Vizsla also orders weapons and fighter jets on the black market from underground companies walking in the dark.
The so-called underground companies are companies that are not officially recognized by the Galactic Empire. As long as they are detected by customs, they are directly regarded as contraband. These companies are especially active in the Outer Rim of the galaxy area. It is worth mentioning that Golden Nyss Shipyard, which was occupied during the Indjori riot a long time ago and was later transferred to Fourth Civilization by Indjori, is such an underground company.
It is even said that Fourth Group was punished by Galactic Republic after Battle of Malastare Canyon 20 years ago. For a period of time after that, Fourth Group was also an underground company. It was not until later that they reconnected with Sheev-Palpatine, who was still a member of Congress at the time, that they came into contact with the punishment of Fourth Group.
However, Pre-Vizsla did not go to Yuri-Orlov, an arms dealer who had become famous in recent years, nor did he go to Hutt who specialized in various smuggling. The company he was looking for was called...
Zann Consortium (Zann Consortium)!!